The Fall
by Me Or The Wallpaper
Summary: I was created only to fall, and to be my brother's greatest tragedy- a small piece of the story that brought hell for a world and set every other version of my soul falling. There is someone who can always put Yuui's pieces back together though. AU; R!Fai
1. Prologue

A/N: I am going to try to do as short author's notes as I can manage, because there are many ways I could possibly ruin the plot since this is a longer story. For instance, if you are confused (you probably will be ^_^'), tell me in a review. If it is about something that will soon be explained, I will not answer whatever questions you have, but I will thank you for the review. If it is about something I thought I already had explained, I'll try to reinforce it in the next chapter and I'll explain it to you anyway. I hope you enjoy this, see you at the end. Also, this is the last author's note that will be in the beginning of a chapter because I hate those.

Disclaimer: The only thing I own here are the fine details to Real Fai's personality.

Warnings: AU. Other warnings forthcoming. Language occasionally, especially when certain characters begin to become involved. Tragedy, though it might not always mean what you think. Quite a bit of confusion.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~Prologue~-~-~

In my dreams, I can see everything- every existence that is 'mine' in some other world. It comes from being placed into this chaotically spun web of life and hitsuzen-connections made so haphazardly; I sit on top of the connecting threads instead of becoming entangled within, and I peek into those other lives as though through windows to a neighbor's house.

Life of Fai-1) {The sky is barren, and the world is far too far below me. The sky, the sky stretches out in those separate strips between the bars. The gap is wide enough for me to step through, just step through and have the ground fly up closer, closer to me until it greets me with its dark and silent arms, where there is no hunger or loneliness or even pain after one last burst of it…}

Life of Fai-2){My face is spotted, but when I look at his, it does not seem like mine could be different at all; diseased at all when his is so clear. And then I see it in his eyes, my same yet different face in those center black inky circles incrusted with pale blue; see all that dark disease interrupting the expanses of pale, and…}

I see everything and I see 'them,' the characters in these other stories of 'my' life. I see even my own life stretched out before me sometimes and what's coming scares the living shit out of me. Terrifies me, but not because of 'the fall,' not because of every or any fall…

Life of Fai-#1 and most other lives) {A choice, a choice. Me or him, and I don't even have to stop and think. I know, I know what the answer is, and I don't know if it's because I'm selfish or selfless that I choose to die in his place…}

The Fall is the title I have given to the finale of every life: It is how each fragment of my existence ends- playing through the play written out for my soul until the last act that will set so much in motion. Every single fall that I see again and again through those eyes that are mine and watch me back: that's not what makes me feel fear rise like bile in my throat. It's always after I've fallen that hell breaks loose.

Life of Fai-2) {His hands cling to mine, and they look strange and pale and pure when my diseased and swollen black-blue things clutch them back. He shakes for moments now when he looks at me, there is a growing terror when I awaken and for a moment my limbs don't work. For a moment I struggle and it feels like a thousand needles all shooting into my flesh at once, as though my foot has simply fallen asleep but it _hurts_… and I see him…}

It's always after the fall has come and I have already played my part that Hell starts, because that is when He breaks.

Life of Fai(The Fall)-3) _{-thought process, worded by an older version, aka, this version is too young to speak or write-_(For Him(me) it ended quickly, without warning. I had only just glimpsed the face of that other me peering in by this point, and I was so small I didn't realize what it meant. But He was still there, as He always will be, to clutch me to his chest when I fell. And the ones below took him away and my fall was complete and I left. On my way out, I saw Other Me(me?) watching them take him away, and I looked back too, but it was too late. I(the real me) was gone.)}

I, right now, am the oldest any one of me has ever gotten. I see more then any other version of myself has ever seen- the threads of this 'hitsuzen' I was never aloud to be a part of are clear. Set in stone; yet still able to be grasped, in a way. I see the lifetimes that have been played out in those other worlds by those other versions of myself. I see all of them(me), and a few of them see this me. I've seen so many of Me fall.

Life of Fai(The Fall)-4) {A gunshot, a gunshot and I fell as well; 12 years old and I hit the asphalt with my brother screaming at my side. As my back arches and as if through frigid water(pressing hard fingers at my ears) I seem to sink towards the ground, I am old enough to know it is familiar. I am old enough to remember the dreams of the other me in other worlds, and know they are familiar and real and that I have fallen before. I am old enough to know my brother's face, eyes wide and terror clawed across the perfect blue as I have seen so many times before.

I am old enough to see the bars of that window as I willingly let go, old enough to feel my legs crumble from disease below me; old enough to slip easily from the banister I had foolishly climbed up, to remember falling as though it was the only natural thing I had ever done.}

When I fall, the act shatters everything else while I pass on unscathed and dead, my part in the play complete. But he has to finish each act, tread through to madness or pain or suffering or imprisonment, to always loneliness. He is the one that shatters when I fall.

Life of Fai&Yuui(The Fall; Shattering; Death of Yuui)-5) {A car accident. We both fall this time, but he has time to shatter before he follows; my brother has time to try to shake my broken body awake even as he bleeds. And He(I) am watching this, too.}

Souls get into habits so easily. Especially hesitant, half existing things like mine. Falling is what I was created to do, the goal set in the first forming of my life and each existence after the first crumbled obediently to the ground at the base of a tower, fell to a pit dug for dead sinners.

Life of Fai(The Fall)-6) {Again and again and again I fall. I am old enough to see it, and I am old enough to see the fall approaching in _my own life_. Kakei smiles sadly at me when I ask him, and when he nods his chin falls but doesn't rise, as though he can't expect me to rise anyway so why bother. Everything seems sarcastic and morbid lately though. Eyes flash, and that small almost sadistic grin twists his face, but I know it's not happiness- Kakei merely watches as all this plays out. And he can't expect me to stop it even though I try, because I do fall, exactly the way I saw it, though I can't stop it even as I pedal onto the ice slickened bridge. I've seen it happen. It already has happened, in a way. I can't change what's already happened.}

My soul has gotten into the habit of falling.

Life of Fai-2) {Disease claims my legs, and I crumble. I am bed ridden for the next few days as The Fall continues to drag closer, this one more drawn out then ever before.}

And in response, his, the original soul, not some poor created thing like me, has gotten into the habit of shattering. As intended.

Life of Fai(The Fall)-1) {I fall from the tower, and I have never been so calm. It will end soon, and though I cannot be by his side, he will have his life. It doesn't matter if it was selfishness or selflessness, there is no way I could have made any other choice then to die when the other option was letting his precious heart stop beating. And I see his eyes widen and I see the ground coming and I know it's familiar; I know it's so familiar despite the fact that I am the original created bit of life intended to fall and break the face identical to mine drawing swiftly closer below me and I am so sorry so sorry sorrysorrysorry…}

There is though someone who seems to have gotten into the habit of putting those shattered pieces back together.

The car skids against a street shimmering with wavering heat, and I fall, fall, fall away again. Life of Fai. The Fall. Fast approaching. Exact date unknown.

And I am old enough now to see it. I am older then I've ever been before, and I see more then ever before. So this time, even if I **know** I cannot stop my fall, I can at least make sure all that follows does not go by that sick original plan. That instead of bringing pain, my death can at the very least mean **nothing**. I know now how it will happen.

Which gives me time to prepare this time, for The Fall.

A/N: I don't know if you could tell from this, but this is a story about Fai. And I don't mean Fai as in Yuui-who-calls-himself-Fai, I mean Fai who leapt from that tower. And let me just say- later chapters will not be like this. This is a story-story, there will be dialogue and normal writing patterns and everything (and not as many things inside parentheses). What was in this prologue will eventually be explained, but if you are desperately confused you can still tell me because it will help me know how to explain it.

Sorry for the clear confusion of this first chapter, it will (hopefully) begin making more sense once more is explained. Oh, and Kakei is a CLAMP character from Legal Drug. You don't need to read it to understand, it will be mentioned once later though.

Reviews are greatly(as in really really) appreciated, and I apologize in advance for the very, very long wait between updates.


	2. The Beginning

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Warnings: Don't you just love when I upload a chapter without a beta? Full story at the bottom.

The picture reveals all of the sharp points of his face, and next to it my brother looks more soft then anything. The look in his eyes though is the same. Blood stains the expanse of their skins in dribbling droplets, and despite the gore Yuui is happy. Sickly happy it might be, but happy all the same. My pen stops on the arch of Kurogane's brow and I blink.

"I'm ho-ome!" His voice practically sings from the front room, and I hear the tell tale rustle of plastic.

"Yuui!" I call exasperatedly without getting up, pulling some tape from the dispenser on my desk and sticking it to the general center of the top of the sheet, rising to run my thumb over the waxy skin of it so the paper sticks directly in the rectangle of space left in my well ordered collage of events lined up on the wall. "You didn't get another creepy plant, did you?"

"Dorsera callistos!" Yuui cries in an oddly impressively done fake Spanish accent. The door to my room is flung open without the question of a knock and Yuui practically prances in, his precious disturbing little plant clutched in his hands and a positively evil grin cracking his face. "Look at it. Isn't it BEAutiful!"

At first when the thing is shoved in my face I wince away, but then I blink and lean forwards. Actually, this one is… relatively normal looking. Normally when Yuui brings home another plant, it's a disturbing seemingly lifeless mixture of some tentacle monster and a wad of half digested cat hair, great odd sticky things prodding out in all directions and huge mouth gaping, generally appearing as though in the middle of the night it'll crawl out of its flimsy fake terracotta pot and devour all of us. One even had leafy fangs.

This one though seems fine. Its black heart has five points like the childish drawings of some gothic child. Petals droop like delicate tongues- a brilliant, flashing orange- from each point. Yellow dots rim the edges of the indents of the star center as if the entire thing is an odd eclipse.

"This one's carnivorous! Do you wanna see it eat a bug?" Yuui asks excitedly.

The plant doesn't look all that pretty anymore.

"Eh… no." I say, smiling. "Why don't you just put it in the sun. Unless it's another one of those… shadow dwellers. Anyway. Feed it a bug… somewhere other then here… please…."

Yuui laughs, and as he sinks down in the beanbag chair beside my desk he pokes my leg with one dirty-sneakered toe almost on instinct. "C'mon Fai! It's just eating. You do it all the time."

"I'm a vegetarian."

Yuui lets out a dramatic, strangled fake sob. "I know. And it breaks my heart, my darling little brother, that you would scorn stupid animal flesh made all delicious with mustard and sauces and stuff when you would munch on beautiful creatures like our lovely new addition to the family, Dory!" Yuui roles over. "My poor, lost little brother!"

"I'm three whole minutes older then you, stupid!" I cry, laughing out loud.

"Well," Yuui said, "I was a smidgen taller then you for a whole three years when we were little, and I took all your blood for a while there too whitey, so ha!"

With the final 'ha' he jabs his foot at me again, this time catching me between the ribs and I laugh, instinctively cringing to the side and falling off the chair in the process. "Yeah, sure, you stole that blood. Thief! Give me my blood!" I cry in an underworld-style shriek, and Yuui lets out a shriek of his own, rolling away, laughing, our hands stretched out and both of us now recovered from the incident of our birth- hands the same pale cream shade.

"God, Fai, this is so morbid! So morbid!" Yuui says, laughing.

"What have you done with my BLOOD?! Have you fed it to Dory? Dory! Treacherous leaf brother,"

"Sister!"

"Leaf sister! Thou hast eaten the wine of my veins, has feasted on my life, and now you only sit upon the throne of my sketched out soul, lording the flesh of yourself before me on the ground!"

The laughter dies and I turn to Yuui, dropping my arms, which had been in the midst of making spooky waving motions. His lips are slightly parted, an odd smile quirking his face and eyes wide and alight in that strange Yuui way that always, to me, makes us seem utterly different in looks.

"You know," he says, "besides the fact that that was all about a plant drinking your blood, that was pretty amazing."

I blink. "The words?" I ask.

"Yeah." Yuui says consideringly, and then rises, brushing the wrinkles from his shirt but not bothering to fix it- the thing's covered in dirt and grass stains anyway. Yuui is constantly rolling around in the ground, trying to gather bugs to satisfy the hungers of his many leafy, carnivorous wards. "Hey," he adds, peering at my perfectly laid out wall of drawings, "How's the book going?"

I stand up quickly. I'd forgotten I'd left my notebook on the table, crisp pages opened and gaping for the world to see their secrets. Neat blue script like tiny shadowed ants across the white. "It's fine." I say quickly, my automatic response, and then catching the eye of one of the drawings of Kurogane on the wall- a teenage one- I add with sudden passionate realization "It's actually going really good. I think so, anyway. Much better then it normally goes. Right now I really have a clear plan about what exactly to do next."

Yuui's entire face lights up and he does a kind of skipping leap forwards so that he's _just_ invading my personal space. "Good? Really good? Like… good enough to let me read it, maybe?" He says, grinning his manic grin.

I frown, unconsciously clutching tighter at the closed black notebook on my desk, holding the pages closed like wings against the body of the bird, hoping the words don't fly away. "Nah," I say carefully, and Yuui simply shrugs. He's used to this rejection, and he plops down easily again on the beanbag chair.

Tipping his head back far enough, for a moment I can see nothing but his chin lined with fine blond hairs of a teenager's almost-beard and the black holes of his nostrils, his eyes vanishing behind narrow cheekbones. "Hey Fai," he says thoughtfully, tasting the words before he says them, and this is how I know that it's about either my book or love, he is never this careful otherwise, "remember when we were little, and you were just coming up with the book?"

I nod, and then realizing he can't see me, murmur a soft "Hmm," as I place the notebook on the shelf on my desk next to the other ones, black spines lined up against black spines, each with a number drawn bluntly in white-out pen across the top.

"And remember when you used to say I was the hero of your story?" He asks, and I stop moving for a moment

"I don't remember that." I lie, and despite the fact that we both know I'm lying, I receive nothing more then a flicker of the eyes, a sideways glance.

"Well… anyway. I suppose it's not like that anymore, hm?"

I pause, looking at one of the earliest drawings pinned at the very bottom right above my desk- two small boys with crops of unbrushed, tousled hair, one with his fist in his mouth and his eyes wide, the other beaming brilliantly with one arm slung over the other boy's shoulders.

"It's not… really." I say absolutely honestly. "I mean, he started out as you. At the very base and beginning, it's you. But you're different because… well, clearly you didn't grow up in the same world. You didn't have the same experiences. But there are some things that are the same. There are some things that are inevitable. Lots of things are inevitable. It's almost easy to say everything is."

Yuui chuckles lightly, affectionately, and I look up at him. He smiles at me a rolls over on the beam bag so he's lying on his side, elbow sinking into the cushion and palm flat against his ear. "You talk about your characters like they're real people, and they have real 'fates' or something."

"They are real people." I say immediately. "I made that mistake in the beginning. For a while I tried to make myself doubt it, but they're very real. Everything that happens is very real."

"You know, you're a genius." Yuui says sweetly, smiling, and he turns and then leaps up nimbly, stretching his arms for a moment before reaching forwards with one hand to grab Dory the plant and the other arm wraps around my neck, slung over my shoulders, a brilliant grin stretching over his face. One hand reaches up and tousles my hair, and he kisses the top of my head. "Some people would call you crazy, but I know you're a genius."

"Thanks, Yuui." I say with dry humor, smiling up at him with eyebrows raised. He flashes a grin back at me as if to say 'well, it's the truth. All of it.' As he walks away, Dory clutched in one hand as the other grips the doorframe, leaving with a dramatic spin before calling back to me.

"Fai! Where's mom?"

I blink, searching backwards in my immediate memory before calling back, "She said that she had to go over to the community center for a meeting that she forgot about! She won't be back till 8."

Yuui let out a dramatic sigh, and I heard the ruffle of a plastic bag, probably as he removed bugs for his new little monster. "Damn. Can you make dinner tonight?"

"It's your turn."

"I know! But you're just soooo good at it!"

I sigh, pulling out my notebook, opening it to the last page and rubbing my temples as a headache buds between them, pulling a sketchpad forwards beside the open notebook and pulling scraps of left over torn out pages out of the gelled backbone. Yuui waits for my answer, and I hear the sink turn on as he fills his small spray bottle with water, the sound of it spritzing twice like fabric rushing against sand.

"…How about you order Chinese?" I yell, and then add "Or Japanese! I'm kind of in the mood for Japanese food!" I call.

"Are there Japanese take-out places around here?" Yuui calls, taken aback.

"Check the phone book!" I yell, trying not to get angry. My headache has turned quickly into a full on deep sour burn, each eye throbbing and I shut them off from the suddenly jarring light, pressing against the lids. Small, strange and vastly different faces peer down at me from the sketches of the different lives, the notebooks containing my notes on all of my separate lives and deaths, all my brother's separate shatterings and all the sacrifices of one boy. The face of **him** stares down at me from another drawing. This one with Yuui smiling. Yuui's face bright and wide and honest. **His** arm slung over Yuui's shoulders, a grin on his face as well.

"Will do!" Yuui calls back from the kitchen, and begins to hum an odd, tuneless, tone-deaf song.

I should go to sleep. Everything begins tomorrow. I might as well get some rest.

A/N: OK! Just thought I'd say, this is not the actual chapter. As you may have noticed, the actual chapter is taking forever to… be done. Technically it's done now. But there's been some weird mistake with fanfiction dot net and beta-ing and something went wrong along the way, whether it was human error or machine I don't know. Either way- this scene would end up being in it eventually, though exact circumstances I knew would depend on where. I decided since I was taking forever now would be a good time. So without a beta this time, (this will change. I WILL use a beta in the future, I know I screw up without one) I have given you a tiny little pre-chapter thing. So when the chapter does get worked out… well, until then, you have this.

One other little thing- the last picture I mentioned exists in canon. CLAMP made a pic of Kurogane with his arm slung over a crossdressing Fai's shoulders, smiling and looking off at something else with Fai just generally looking happy and content.

And even though I know it's kind of short… please review! *Insert Sakura and Mokona and other cute things all making a puppy dog face. And Kurogane making a puppy dog face (mind breaks)*


	3. Stalking Kurogane

Disclaimer: Yes. I am CLAMP. *Receives package- looks inside and sees an eye staring back at her with the threat 'you're next' written on bloody finger print stained paper.*

*gulp*

I lied. I don't own Tsubasa.

Warnings: Cursing. Um… stalking? Shortness? Possible badness? I am a bit worried about the quality of this chapter.

Dishes clink and laughter sounds, half meaningless, at the table next to mine. A waitress does a slow dance between the bundles of crowded company, twisting and turning; careful not to spill a drop of the coffee she has precariously balanced on her tray. Whipped cream melts over the rims of the cups. When she deposits them on the table, one carefully manicured hand runs up a white streak and is licked. The scent of coffee is thick and sharp in the air-conditioned breeze that wafts from the open faced café, mingled with the sweat of strangers and the bite of herbal and cheap perfumes all swamped together.

Sun filters through the trees and I turn the empty espresso cup over in my hands, glancing at the clock for perhaps the sixteenth time. It should be soon…

And at this moment, even from across the street I hear it. The shrillness of the bell inside the school, signaling the end of class. There is a moment of chaos contained in the white-bricked building, and then boys and girls caught between childhood and adulthood flood from inside, a vibrant rainbow jet of the public school students. They shriek to each other over the heads of their fellows; they pop tiny headphones into their ears and promptly block out the world.

I rise quickly, signaling the waitress over and pay, my eyes still glued on the door. He should be coming soon, I can't afford to miss him. After paying and being thanked and told to please come again some day soon, I grab my backpack by its worn strap and hook it over my shoulder, feeling the weight of my books slanting me sideways. I don't bother to walk into the shop and then out the door- instead I hop the low white plastic fence that surrounds the outside terrace. Leaving the protection of the flapping cloth sunroof, I squint, eyes still trained on the doors.

Buses crowd before the school and the waves of students separate and stuff these rolling metal cages, their slumped shadows creeping behind the shadowed glass. Wheels turn and the crowds thin so that eventually it is only a few scattered beings resting in the shade of trees or leaning against the sides of the building; a trail of smoke possibly streaming from between their lips or a book before their faces. I scan them again and again, at this point becoming a bit more concerned that maybe he managed to escape with the masses of kids on the buses or perhaps he left school earlier from a different exit- you never know with Kurogane. For all I know he dropped out this morning.

Though somehow that doesn't sound like him…

It is then that I notice her, another face familiar amidst dimensions. Black hair falls down to her waist, wisps of it rising in the soft warm breeze. I can see the wide eyes even from here, and though she is too far off for me to see the color, I know they are purple. I recognize her ever-smiling face as she glances down at a wrist, where the glass surface of a watch glints. Then she turns and faces the school as I am, standing and waiting, small hand cradling the strap of a pink backpack almost protectively.

With an audible slam, the doors are thrown open again as one more student exits, feet pounding against the pavement and each motion livid from some wrong that has clearly just been dealt him, perhaps by a teacher or someone else. Either way I can tell even from here who he is, and I scarcely suppress my face splitting grin. There is no missing the gait, the kind of livid life pressed into each thump of a footstep and strained curl of tension in the brow, though I can hardly make out his face at all from here.

"Hey Kurogane, where do you think you're going?" The girl calls when she sees him, not unkindly. He, however, is in a foul mood and responds with venom in his voice.

"Tomoyo, just go home. It's none of your business, anyway."

It is, however, a far more charming answer then many other responses I've seen him give over the years and over the lifetimes. Tomoyo simply smirks at him, unfazed, and makes her way down the sidewalk, joining a small group that had waited for her and chatting animatedly with a collection of girls.

Kurogane stalks down the sidewalk with his shoulders hunched and the characteristic glare never leaving his features untwisted. I feel an odd thrill, as if I have just spotted the star of a reality TV series; a person whose life I know every fine detail of. A character come to life, each small action familiar in an almost disturbing way. His hands are shoved deep into the pits of his pockets, his gaze flickering under harshly arching brows. As if to make it an accident, he ducks swiftly into a side alley, twisting suddenly at the shadowed mouth of it.

Slowly I follow across the street from him, weaving clumsily around the people strolling casually down the walk. I stop in front of a bookstore, letting my shoulders rest against the window, trailing a finger uncommittedly down the row of spines in the bins on the table in front of the store. I can see him from here.

He lifts one large, tanned hand, cupping it before his face and I see a glow leak onto his features like honey pooling from his palm. The lighter is placed back in his pocket and I see the tiny spark of the cigarette like a star in the blending blackness of the alley and his own dark skin and hair.

Cautiously I approach the end of the street and cross, my gaze never leaving Kurogane. As I am walking towards the alley though, I see him shift and then move out of sight. I hurry ahead, hesitating at the mouth of the small space between the two buildings. Peeking around the edge I see his back turning another corner, and I rush forwards.

We are on another street; a smaller one. A small park is on one side, and he leaps the low fence and walks through it, shoving the rusted edge of a merry-go-round as he walks by. The rhythmic creaks of it sound hollow in the empty space, its normal inhabitants all still in school.

Slowly and with as much normalcy as I can muster, I follow him. Swinging the park gate open creates a small squeak and though it is barely heard over the still reverberating noise of the merry go round, for a moment I see the arch of his cheek and think that perhaps he turned a fraction of an inch to look behind him. He keeps walking though. He does not glance back fully.

As he jumps the fence at the other end of the playground, however, he suddenly speeds up, practically sprinting down the street in easy, loping strides. The ripples of his dark shirt fly out behind him and his hand holds the cigarette's lit end inside the palm the same way another would hold fingers before a candle against the wind.

When he finally slows, my breath catches and I immediately match my pace to his, terrified for an instant that he's heard me. It's all rather exciting, actually. Instead he cuts again into another alley and I approach this one as well.

When I reach the mouth of it, I hear voices- deep ones. Peering down I see a small crowd of boys, varying in ages. Tattoos ripple on one's pale skin, a twisting creature made of fine and arching lines that looks like a bat. A boy scarcely old enough to be in high school stands at the tattooed boy's side, and two others flank him.

Though I cannot hear a clearly articulated word of what they are saying, it is clear from the tone and their actions that they are arguing. The tattooed boy says something angry and forceful, arms crossed across a white sleeveless shirt clad chest. I hear Kurogane yell back, just as livid and just as forcefully, and then I hear the crack as a fist connects with a head in one hard blow.

Kurogane advances, anger in each stomp of his feet but the young brown haired boy runs forwards, pushing him backwards and holding his arm, speaking quietly and imploringly.

Whatever he says seems to have some effect, as Kurogane stands back, still glaring though. He speaks again, slowly and deliberately, and there is another pause. Then the boy in the middle, the one who struck him, slowly reaches into his pocket and removes something that looks like a piece of folded paper. As well as something else that certainly looks like a fat fold of bills, the olive green of them a kind of muted dark before the paper. Kurogane snatches it from his grasp, tearing open the paper and eyes scan as though memorizing every fine detail of whatever's inside before folding it again and shoving it deep into the pocket of his jeans, not even bothering to count the money.

Without saying goodbye, the boys turn and walk back down the alley away from me, the brown haired boy glancing back once. Kurogane however turns and faces me directly, and his eyes lock with mine; a glare already twisting each sharp and arching feature.

So fast I hardly feel myself move I leap backwards, scampering out of the alleyway and around to a small supermarket, hiding behind the rack of chips before the great front windows. I see him exit, walking slowly past the window without glancing at me, apparently unconcerned. Perhaps he simply thought for an instant that he might get in trouble for whatever the hell he had been doing in that alley- it certainly hadn't looked innocent.

I wait a moment before turning and peering out onto the street again.

There's no sign of him.

With an increasing sense of worry I walk hurriedly down the small street, eyes searching quickly over the unknown faces of the walkers until I see the edge of a black fabric shirt disappearing into yet another inlet between two buildings and at a run I follow after him, feeling my breath grow shallow in my chest. I see him dodging a trash bin, scampering down and leaping over any fallen rubbage: an old water stained box and a pile of abandoned Chinese food containers. I run after him, dodging these objects as best I can, and he turns sharply at the end, swinging around to face me so fast I feel my heart leap into my cold throat before I collide with his chest, a wall of black before my crushed nose, forehead smacking against him before I'm knocked backwards.

"Ngh!"I yell, rubbing my head. He, however, doesn't even seem to twitch.

The prat.

I'm too happy to even be bothered by this now, though. I grin wickedly up at him and he glares down at me, arms crossing over the chest I just collided with, and those harsh dark eyes don't even flutter to blink, trained on me as if marking an aim for a weapon.

"Why are you following me?" His voice is a gruff and low growl, yet a bark at the same time. A command to speak.

I step back. Kurogane, before anyone knows him, is best viewed at a distance of -at the very least- four feet. Unless you're my brother. He seems to be an exception to that rule, surviving perfectly well most of the time with even the normal amount of personal space ignored and infiltrated with great glee.

"Hello." I say, and quite politely I extend my hand, which he doesn't take. "My name is Fai."

He doesn't even bother to look down at it, extended forwards and open for his palm, fingers half cupped. Kurogane's eyes -almost wine colored in this world with this bright late afternoon light- stare at my face and seem to be, if not trying to peel away the layers as I've seen him look before, expectantly waiting for my façade to fall. My smile does not falter though, and he grudgingly accepts it as true.

"Fai." He says slowly, as though speaking to an idiot. Or perhaps not as affectionately gruff as he would at idiot, considering how familiar the term is to him. Or really, it's only affection in his own rather unique way of showing it, so… anyway. "Why are you following me?" He repeats, and he gives me a look that clearly says that if I get the answer to this specific question wrong, he will, in all senses of the phrase, end me.

I raise my eyebrows at him and smile again. This entire thing is so familiar, and for a moment I wonder if some other existence of me is looking in on this scene and for a moment mistaking me for Yuui.

"Well, Kurogane, I have business with you."

His eyes narrow when I say his name, but besides that any shock he might have felt is well hidden. If anything, he almost looks amused. "What are you," he says, and he steps back, leans against the wall and lifts the old cigarette to his lips. Ash has claimed almost a centimeter of the rolled paper, grey and precarious, and he taps the unlit saliva slickened end against his teeth when he bares the molars to me. The ash falls away, and the tiny light of the cigarette is a point against the darkness of him in the shadows. I think for a moment that this is the extent of the question, despite the fact that it seemed to trail off as though missing a finish. "A stalker?"

I smile at the comparison, and his eyes narrow at mistrust in the face of my supposed happiness. "Yes. In a way."

This, I think, surprises him. He only raises his eyebrow though, a single one, and those teeth that were bared at me cover with lips as he takes a long drag on the cigarette and when he exhales the smoke it drifts in the air around us.

There is a prolonged silence where I grin gaily at him and he seems to gouge exactly how psychotic I might be.

"Well, are you going to try to rape and kill me now, Fai? Because I do think I could probably take you." He says, calm as ever, as though discussing the weather with me.

"No. But I am going to ask you to have coffee with me."

The eyebrow arched again. "I tend to not date random creepy private school stalker boys I've never met before."

"Wow. Is that my nickname? Because really, it's kind of a mouthful. You call my brother idiot or mage or stupid or moron or something like that, really, in most worlds. And very occasionally, by his name. But I've found in every world you've known me, I'm something that's not as simple and blunt, like I'm 'That Idiot's brother' or I'm 'creepy school boy' or something else, but Random Creepy Private-School Stalker Boy trumps them all, I think."

That certainly surprised him. His eyes widen, and an amused, incredulous look crosses his face. The cigarette, now nothing but a lit butt, is stubbed out and dropped like the tiny bit of a conversation we were having.

"Goodbye, Fai."

He shakes his head slightly as he walks away as though to get rid of the last traces of my words from his ears, and his fists are shoved deep into his jean pockets; the same ones that house the whatever-it-is that the boys in the alley gave him and the wad of crumpled bills.

"Hey, wait!" I call, and I run after him and reach forwards, clasping one bare, tan arm in my hand and pulling and then I am being thrown back into the fence surrounding the parking-lot on the left side. My head jerks back and hits the criss-crossing metal before it bounces forwards, and I bite my cheek as the jaws clamp. It's all right though, I think it worked. The wires are ringing from the contact of my skull, and the soles of my shoes grind against the grit of gravel as I try to claim my balance again, but I think it worked.

Kurogane is glaring at me, and there is fire in his wine colored eyes, eyes that now look like blood thrumming with his heart- blood buried under the hard cold ice of the whites and pitted with black pupil.

"Don't. Touch. Me."

He stabs each word with a threat and his eyes burn at me in one final, feral glare before he turns away, chin balancing the world on its raised tip.

It's all right though, because I can feel it- like a thread, I can feel and see it stretching, unwinding as he walks away. A thread stretching between us like the tether of a kite, invisible and unreal to him on his arm and me grasping it with the simple tip of my finger. And through it, I can feel his heartbeat and his lungs, can even _feel_ his mind. Can feel when sleep approaches.

"See you tomorrow, Kurogane." I call after him, rubbing the outer side of my cheek where I bit the inside. He doesn't even look back at me.

And that night, we fell into dreams.

A/N: Um… what to say, what to say? I was going to explain something, but I realized it's best left for later for explanations. Um… review please with any questions; I don't want to miss anything in explanation. And opinions of course, please.

Another thing- I don't quite know whether this is good. I just finished a play and the SATs, so the biggest thing I'm immediately even slightly worried about right now it Jr. Prom, so when I have shallow worries I sometimes wonder if my writing comes up shallow as well. And this is the real chapter, yes.

Review please. Honestly. Please. It's the right thing to do. You know it. *Insert puppy dog eyes*

New Author's note: Well, this was written A While Ago. I gave it to a new Beta, who would write back saying she'd send it to me tomorrow every time I asked her and then never send it. I've given up on her. So yeah, here's a delayed-even-by-my-slow-standards update. And again, I'm sorry, but updates will be VERY few and far between.


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